A Minor Pentatonic, Upright Bass Side

5 notes to the octave, mapped below onto this reader's EADG fingerboard, with every A called out. Those markers are the useful part mid-bar: a chart moves under you, and the thing you need is where the root went — not where the pattern started.

Gritty, bluesy, and direct — five notes with no half steps, so each one lands with attitude over a minor or dominant chord. The sound of rock and blues lead playing.

Heard in: Blues, rock, hard rock, metal, funk, and soul solos — the first scale most lead players learn and the one they never leave.

The walk from one number to the next has further to travel on this instrument, so the notes it passes through are chosen for the distance as much as for the harmony.

Play it slowly against the audio until the position stops being a position, then take it to a chart counted in A and let the numbers pick their own notes out of it.